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World Festival of Animated Film /
short and feature edition 4 to 9 June 2018
World Festival of Animated Film / short and feature edition 4 to 9 June 2018
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Midhat_ajanovic_2

ANIMAFEST PRO | ANIMAFEST SCANNER V | ANIMAFEST SCANNER V - Panel 4: Animation at Large

The Context and Development of Animated Documentaries, the Cornerstones of Modern Animation in Sweden – Midhat Ajanović (University West, Trollhättan, Sweden)

It seems that the first decades of the new millennium has brought a small renaissance of documentaries, especially those that combine live action and animated pictures and even those visualised totally by employment of some animation technique. The main concern in this paper is a conspicuous propensity in Swedish animation toward animated documentary. Arguably, Sweden is the country that, besides Canada and Great Britain, has developed the most prolific production of films that merge documentary purposes and animated imagery. The paper is composed of three parts. In the beginning the paper defines animated documentary. Swedish animation and documentary history is roughed out in the second part putting emphasis on certain features that might be the base for the development of the animated documentary. Finally, the last part focuses first on some factors in its production and social background that, at least partly, explain why the animated documentary is a prominent feature on the Swedish animation scene and, lastly, some films and filmmakers that eminently represent the genre are pointed up.  

Midhat Ajanović (a j a n) is a writer and film scholar born in Sarajevo (Bosnia) in 1959. He studied journalism in Sarajevo and practiced film animation in Zagreb Film Studio of Animation (Croatia). Since 1994 he is living in Gothenburg (Sweden) where he obtained a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies. He teaches at various Swedish film schools, currently at University West in Trollhättan. He has published many books in various genres and in several languages, including eight novels and several books that deal with history and theory of animated film. He also worked as the organiser and artistic director of the festivals in Podgorica (Montenegro), Zagreb (Croatia) and Eksjö (Sweden) and was the member of many internationally juries. For his work, he got various rewards at significant festivals and exhibition worldwide. The 20th World Festival of Animated Film, Animafest, Zagreb 2010 awarded him with its Award for special contribution to animation studies.